SEPTA Showdown: No talks scheduled in Philly transit negotiations

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Buses, subways and trolleys were running Monday in the Philadelphia area despite the midnight expiration of a workers contract, and transit agency officials said they were waiting for the union’s response to their final offer.

No bargaining was scheduled for Monday, said Jerri Williams, a spokeswoman for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority.

Thousands of members of the Transport Workers Union are working without a contract. After negotiations broke off Sunday night, union president Willie Brown said employees would stay on the job “for a while.”

A union spokesman had no immediate comment Monday.

Advertisement

A work stoppage would involve all city transit lines as well as suburban buses and trolleys. They provide about 900,000 daily trips, including for thousands of public school students.

SEPTA said it offered a two-year contract with wage increases of 2 percent the first year and 3 percent in the second year — a boost over a previous offer of a 2.75 percent wage increase in the second year. But workers would have to spend an additional 1 percent of their wages on health care premiums under the deal.

Employee wages and benefits account for about 70 percent of SEPTA’s $1.3 billion operating budget this year. The average annual salary for a bus driver, including overtime, is about $65,000.

According to the union, points of contention in bargaining include discipline, use of surveillance cameras, pensions and the effect of the new federal health care law.

The contract with 4,700 employees in SEPTA’s city division — including bus, subway and trolley operators — expired March 15. Contracts with two suburban SEPTA branches expired April 1, and the deal with a third suburban division expired late Sunday. Those three contracts cover about 750 bus drivers, mechanics, and trolley and light rail operators.

SEPTA, the nation’s sixth-largest transit operator, has annual ridership of about 337 million.

The transit lines within the city of Philadelphia provide about 825,000 passenger trips on an average weekday, while the suburban fleet offers 75,000. Thirteen regional commuter lines would not be affected by a strike.

A 2009 walkout by city transit workers lasted six days.

Earlier:

By JEFF WOLFE

jwolfe@delcotimes.com

@delcoreporter

There will be no SEPTA strike today, according to its officials, but just what happens after that remains to be seen.

SEPTA and TWU Local 234 union officials were still apparently negotiating late Sunday night.

According to a union spokesperson, the talks had been scheduled to go into late Sunday night. According SEPTA, as of late Sunday afternoon there had been no talks since Friday. The last of four separate division union contracts was set to expire at midnight Sunday.

TWU Local 234 President Willie Brown stated that there would be no strike as of midnight, meaning there would be no service interruption today.

SEPTA also said late Sunday night that it had made a final offer to the union on a two-year contract that would include a 5 percent wage increase.

“We remain committed to good faith negotiations with the union for a contract, and we hope the union will return to the bargaining table to resume discussions over a longer-term agreement,” said SEPTA spokesperson Jerri Williams.

That was a slight change to the rhetoric that had taken place earlier Sunday.

As of 4:21 p.m. Sunday the TWU website stated, “SEPTA has been playing hard ball today, saying TWU members are overpaid and must contribute more to health insurance even though SEPTA managers pay one third as much as our members for their pensions, but get three times as much when they retire!

“As a result, SEPTA has replaced the question of IF we strike, with the question of WHEN we strike.”

There had been hope of an agreement over the weekend, but SEPTA said that wasn’t possible without negotiations.

“Despite assertions by the TWU leadership that we were very close, the Union has refused to engage in bargaining since Friday afternoon when SEPTA put an offer on the table,” SEPTA Williams said Sunday afternoon. “Not a single counter-offer on economics since that time. They have made no efforts to close the gap or respond in any meaningful way.

“(The) union said they had to have a two-year deal with wage increases in each year. The authority wanted a longer-term deal, but in the interest of avoiding a work stoppage, we entered into discussions of a two-year contract.”

According to SEPTA, it had offered a 2 percent wage increase in the first year of the contract and a 2.75 percent increase in the second year of the contract. SEPTA said it has asked for employees to contribute an additional one percent of pay toward the employees’ health care package.

According to the union, other key points include discipline, use of surveillance cameras and the effect of the new federal health care law.

Brown had been optimistic in recent days that the two sides could reach a deal.

The union had called for binding arbitration Wednesday, but SEPTA was against that option saying it didn’t want to end up with a contract it couldn’t afford.

The contract that was set to expire at midnight Sunday included employees from the TWU Local 234 Frontier Division. That includes suburban bus operators and mechanics.

The first TWU SEPTA contract to expire was March 14 with the city division in Philadelphia, which includes bus operators, subway operators and mechanics. TWU Local 234 has about 4,700 members in the city division.

Two more contracts expired April 1. One of those included TWU Victory members, which covers maintenance workers in the suburban division. The other one was with the United Transportation Union 1594, which covers bus operators out of 69th Street, operators on the Media and Sharon Hill trolley lines and conductors and operators on the Norristown High Speed Line. The UTU and TWU contracts were being negotiated separately.

One SEPTA division that would not be affected by a strike is regional rail, which includes the Media/Elwyn and the Wilmington/Newark lines which run through Delaware County. That’s because under rules of the Federal Railroad Administration, which is governed by the Railways Labor Act, members cannot strike until going through a complicated mediation process.

Regional rail conductors of UTU Local 61 reached an agreement with SEPTA last fall. The regional rail engineers’ contract expired on July 14, 2010. Those engineers have been working under the old contract since then.

SEPTA did release a service interruption plan in the event of a strike. That will likely lead to more crowded rides on regional rail.

The service interruption plan would mean that the Market-Frankford Line, Broad Street and Broad Ridge Spur Line, city transit buses or frontier bus routes, and trolley and trackless trolley routes would be shut down.

According to SEPTA, along with regional rail, other modes that will be available with limited service are suburban bus and trolley routes and CCT Connect, which would still have full service.

In the event of a strike, SEPTA does have parking at several regional rail stations for $1 or $2, but would expect those spots to fill quickly. SEPTA also said that riders who purchased transit passes before a service interruption may receive full or partial refunds for unused passes.